Lady Gaga Performs "Bad Romance" on "Today"

"I do not want my fans to ever emulate that or be that way," she says. "I don't want my fans to think they have to be that way to be great. It's in the past. It was a low point, and it led to disaster."

She dug herself out without the benefit of rehab, but with some tough love from her mom and 82-year-old grandma in West Virginia.

"All I will say is I hit rock bottom, and it was enough to send a person over the edge," Gaga says. "My mother knew the truth about that day, and she screamed so loud on the other end of the phone, I'll never forget it. And she said, 'I'm coming to get you.'"

When she sobbed to her grandmother, that "her life was over and I have no hope and I've worked so hard, and I knew I was good," she said, 'I'm gonna let you cry for a few more hours. And then after those few hours are up, you're gonna stop crying, you're gonna pick yourself up, you're gonna go back to New York, and you're gonna kick some ass.'"

The September issue hits newsstands in New York and L.A. on Aug. 4 and nationally Aug. 10.